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Oculus Rift VR Headset: In Your Face 3D

While the best way to play games today is on huge monitors or HDTVs, a company called Oculus believes that future games will be better off with a much smaller display. The Oculus Rift is a virtual reality headset that displays 3D video, and it’s got the big fishes of the gaming industry nerdgasming in excitement.

The current Rift prototype has a 1280×800 resolution (640×400 per eye) and connects to PCs via DVI (or HDMI via an adapter). It’s hardly the first 3D headset to be developed, but Oculus claims that their product has two main advantages: a 110º field of view and ultra low latency. The two should make for a responsive and engaging experience. But Oculus is smart enough to know that great hardware must also be complemented with great software, which is why they’ve started a Kickstarter to offer developer kits and of course gain much needed publicity and support from game developers.

As I said, the Kickstarter fundraiser is aimed at developers, but everyone’s free to donate. A pledge of at least $300 (USD) gets you a developer kit. Along with the SDK, the kit comes with a version of Doom 3 that’s been optimized for the Rift. Hopefully Oculus can show off (simulated) footage of the Rift’s display. I wonder if this would work well with the Leap controller.